ASSIGNMENT
THEORIES OF MEANING, TRUTH, AND REFERENCE
(Language Philosophy)
Saidna Zulfiqar Bin Tahir
10B01003
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR
2010
- THEORIES OF MEANING
The answer to the question, "What is meaning?", is not immediately obvious. One section of philosophy of language tries to answer this question.
Geoffrey Leechposited that there are two essentially different types oflinguistic meaning:conceptualandassociative. For Leech, the conceptual meanings of an expression have to do with the definitions of words themselves, and the features of those definitions. This kind of meaning is treated by using a technique called thesemantic featureanalysis. The conceptual meaning of an expression inevitably involves bothdefinition(also called "connotation" and "intension" in the literature) andextension(also called "denotation"). Theassociative meaningof an expression has to do with individual mental understandings of the speaker. They, in turn, can be broken up into six sub-types:connotative, collocative, social, affective, reflectedandthematic.
Generally speaking, there have been at least six different kinds of attempts at explaining what alinguistic "meaning"is. Each has been associated with its own body of literature.
1.1Idea theories of meaning, most commonly associated with the Britishempiricisttradition ofLocke,BerkeleyandHume, claim that meanings are purely mental contents provoked by signs.[14]Although this view of meaning has been beset by a number of problems from the beginning, interest in it has been renewed by some contemporary theorists under the guise ofsemantic internalism.
Some have argued that meanings are ideas, where the term "ideas" is used to refer to eithermental representations, or to mental activity in general. Those who seek an explanation for meaning in the former sort of account endorse a stronger sort of idea theory of mind than the latter.
Each idea is understood to be necessarilyaboutsomething external and/or internal, real or imaginary. For example, in contrast to the abstract meaning of theuniversal"dog", thereferent"this dog" may mean a particular real life chihuahua. In both cases, the word is about something, but in the former it is about the class of dogs as generally understood, while in the latter it is about a very real and particular dog in the real world.
Stronger idea theories
John Locke, considered all ideas to be both imaginable objects of sensation and the veryunimaginable objects of reflection. He said in hisEssay Concerning Human Understanding, that words are used both as signs for ideas—but also to signify the lack of certain ideas.David Humeheld that thoughts were kinds of imaginable entities. (See hisEnquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 2). Hume argued that any words that could not call upon any past experience were without meaning.
Counter arguments
George BerkeleyandLudwig Wittgensteinheld however that ideas alone are unable to account for the different variations within a general meaning. For example, any hypothetical image of the meaning of "dog" has to include such varied images as a chihuahua, a pug, and a Black Lab; and this seems impossible to imagine, all of those particular breeds looking very different from one another. Another way to see this point is to question why it is that, if we have an image of a specific type of dog (say of a chihuahua), it should be entitled to represent the entire concept.
Another criticism is that some meaningful words, known as non-lexical items, don't have any meaningfully associated image. For example, the word "the" has a meaning, but one would be hard-pressed to find a mental representation that fits it. Still another objection lies in the observation that certain linguistic items name something in the real world, and are meaningful, yet which we have no mental representations to deal with. For instance, it is not known what Bismarck's mother looked like, yet the phrase"Bismarck's mother"still has meaning.
Another problem is that of composition - that it is difficult to explain how words and phrases combine into sentences if only ideas were involved in meaning.
Weaker idea theories
Eleanor RoschandGeorge Lakoffadvanced the theory ofprototypes, which suggests that many lexical categories, at least on the face of things, have "radial structures". That is to say, there are some ideal member(s) in the category that seem to represent the category better than other members. For example, the category of "birds" may feature therobinas the prototype, or the ideal kind of bird. With experience, subjects might come to evaluate membership in the category of "bird" by comparing candidate members to the prototype and evaluating for similarities. So, for example, a penguin or an ostrich would sit at the fringe of the meaning of "bird", because a penguin is unlike a robin.
Intimately related to these researches is the notion of apsychologically basic level, which is both the first level named and understood by children, and "the highest level at which a single mental image can reflect the entire category". (Lakoff 1987:46) The "basic level" of cognition is understood by Lakoff as crucially drawing upon "image-schemas" along with various other cognitive processes.
The philosophers (Ned Block,Gilbert Harman, H. Field) and the cognitive scientists (G. Miller and P. Johnson-Laird) say that the meaning of a term can be found by investigating its role in relation to other concepts and mental states. They endorse a view called "conceptual role semantics". Those proponents of this view who understand meanings to be exhausted by the content of mental states can be said to endorse "one-factor" accounts of conceptual role semantics. and thus fit within the tradition of idea theories.
Truth and Meaning
Some have asserted that meaning is nothing substantially more or less than thetruth conditionsthey involve. For such theories, an emphasis is placed uponreferenceto actual things in the world to account for meaning, with the caveat that reference more or less explains the greater part (or all) of meaning itself.
Logic and language
Thelogical positivistsargued that the meaning of a statement arose fromhow it is verified.
Gottlob Frege
In his paperÜber Sinn und Bedeutung(now usually translated asOn Sense and Reference),Gottlob Fregeargued that proper names present at least two problems in explaining meaning.
- Suppose the meaning of a name is the thing it refers to.Sam, then, means a person in the world who is named Sam. But if the object referred to by the name did not exist—i.e.,Pegasus-- then, according to that theory, it would be meaningless.
- Suppose two different names refer to the same object.HesperusandPhosphoruswere the names given to what were considered distinct celestial bodies. It was later shown that they were the same thing (the planet Venus). If the words meant the same thing, then substituting one for the other in a sentence would not result in a sentence that differs in meaning from the original. But in that case, "Hesperus is Phosphorus" would mean the same thing as "Hesperus is Hesperus". This is clearly absurd, since we learn something new and unobvious by the former statement, but not by the latter.
Frege can be interpreted as arguing that it was therefore a mistake to think that the meaning of a name is the thing it refers to. Instead, the meaning must be something else—the "sense" of the word. Two names for the same person, then, can have different senses (or meanings): one referent might be picked out by more than one sense. This sort of theory is called amediated reference theory.
Frege argued that, ultimately, the same bifurcation of meaning must apply to most or all linguistic categories, such as to quantificational expressions like "All boats float". Ironically enough, it is now accepted by many philosophers as applying to all expressionsbutproper names.
Bertrand Russell
Logical analysis was further advanced byBertrand RussellandAlfred North Whiteheadin their groundbreakingPrincipia Mathematica, which attempted to produce a formal language with which the truth of all mathematical statements could be demonstrated from first principles.
Russell differed from Frege greatly on many points, however. He rejected (or perhaps misunderstood) Frege's sense-reference distinction. He also disagreed that language was of fundamental significance to philosophy, and saw the project of developing formal logic as a way of eliminating all of the confusions caused by ordinary language, and hence at creating a perfectly transparent medium in which to conduct traditional philosophical argument. He hoped, ultimately, to extend the proofs of thePrincipiato all possible true statements, a scheme he calledlogical atomism. For a while it appeared that his pupilWittgensteinhad succeeded in this plan with his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus".
Russell's work, and that of his colleagueG. E. Moore, developed in response to what they perceived as the nonsense dominating British philosophy departments at the turn of the century, which was a kind ofBritish Idealismmost of which was derived (albeit very distantly) from the work ofHegel. In response Moore developed an approach ("Common Sense Philosophy"[1]) which sought to examine philosophical difficulties by a close analysis of the language used in order to determine its meaning. In this way Moore sought to expunge philosophical absurdities such as "time is unreal". Moore's work would have significant, if oblique, influence (largely mediated byWittgenstein) onOrdinary language philosophy.
1.2Truth-conditional theorieshold meaning to be the conditions under which an expression may be true or false. This tradition goes back at least toFregeand is associated with a rich body of modern work, spearheaded by philosophers likeAlfred TarskiandDonald Davidson.
Truth-conditional semanticsis an approach to semantics of natural language that sees the meaning of assertions as being the same as, or reducible to, theirtruth conditions. This approach to semantics is principally associated withDonald Davidson, and attempts to carry out for the semantics of natural language whatTarski'ssemantic theory of truthachieves for thesemantics of logic(Davidson 1967).
Truth-conditional theories of semantics attempt to define the meaning of a given proposition by explaining when the sentence is true. So, for example, because 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white, the meaning of 'snow is white' is snow is white.
History
The first truth-conditional semantics was developed by Donald Davidson inTruth and Meaning(1967). It appliedTarski'ssemantic theory of truthto a problem it was not intended to solve, that of giving the meaning of a sentence.
Refutation from necessary truths
Scott Soameshas harshly criticized truth-conditional semantics on the grounds that it is either wrong or uselessly circular.
Under its traditional formulation, truth-conditional semantics gives every necessary truth precisely the same meaning, for all of them are true under precisely the same conditions (namely, all of them). And since the truth conditions of any unnecessarily true sentence are equivalent to the conjunction of those truth conditions and any necessary truth, any sentence means the same as its meaning plus a necessary truth. For example, if"snow is white" is true iff snow is white, then it is trivially the case that"snow is white" is true iff snow is white and 2+2=4, therefore under truth-conditional semantics "snow is white" means both that snow is white and that 2+2=4. That is wrong.
Soamesargues further that reformulations that attempt to account for this problem must beg the question. In specifying preciselywhichof the infinite number of truth-conditions for a sentence will count towards its meaning, one must take the meaning of the sentence as a guide. However, we wanted to specify meaning with truth-conditions, whereas now we are specifying truth-conditions with meaning, rendering the entire process fruitless.
Refutation from deficiency
Michael Dummett(1975) has objected to Davidson's program on the grounds that such a theory of meaning will not explain what it is a speaker has to know in order for them to understand a sentence. Dummett believes a speaker must know three components of a sentence to understand its meaning: a theory ofsense, indicating the part of the meaning that the speaker grasps; a theory ofreference, which indicates what claims about the world are made by the sentence, and a theory of force, which indicates what kind ofspeech actthe expression performs. Dummett further argues that a theory based on inference, such asProof-theoretic semantics, provides a better foundation for this model than truth-conditional semantics does.
1.3Use theoristperspectives understand meaning to involve or be related tospeech actsand particular utterances, not the expressions themselves. The laterWittgensteinhelped inaugurate the idea of "meaning as use", and a communitarian view of language. Wittgenstein was interested in the way in which the communities use language, and how far it can be taken.It is also associated withP. F. Strawson,John Searle,Robert Brandom, and others.
Throughout the 20th Century, English philosophy focused closely on analysis of language. This style ofanalytic philosophybecame very influential and led to the development of a wide range of philosophical tools.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
The philosopherLudwig Wittgensteinwas originally an artificial language philosopher, following the influence of Russell, Frege, and the Vienna Circle. In hisTractatus Logico-Philosophicushe had supported the idea of an ideal language built up from atomic statements using logical connectives. However, as he matured, he came to appreciate more and more the phenomenon of natural language.Philosophical Investigations, published after his death, signalled a sharp departure from his earlier work with its focus upon ordinary language use. His approach is often summarised by the aphorism "the meaning of a word is its use in a language". However, following in Frege's footsteps, in theTractatus, Wittgenstein declares: "... Only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning."
His work would come to inspire future generations and spur forward a whole new discipline, which explained meaning in a new way. Meaning in a natural language was seen as primarily a question of how the speaker uses words within the language to express intention.
This close examination ofnatural languageproved to be a powerful philosophical technique. Practitioners who were influenced by Wittgenstein's approach have included an entire tradition of thinkers, featuringP. F. Strawson,Paul Grice,R. M. Hare,R. S. Peters, andJürgen Habermas.
J. L. Austin
At around the same timeLudwig Wittgensteinwas re-thinking his approach to language, reflections on the complexity of language led to a more expansive approach to meaning. Following the lead ofGeorge Edward Moore,J. L. Austinexamined the use of words in great detail. He argued against fixating on the meaning of words. He showed that dictionary definitions are of limited philosophical use, since there is no simple "appendage" to a word that can be called its meaning. Instead, he showed how to focus on the way in which words are used in order to do things. He analysed the structure of utterances into three distinct parts:locutions,illocutionsandperlocutions. His pupilJohn Searledeveloped the idea under the label "speech acts". Their work greatly influencedpragmatics.
Peter Strawson
Past philosophers had understood reference to be tied to words themselves. However, SirPeter Strawsondisagreed in his seminal essay, "On Referring", where he argued that there is nothing true about statements on their own; rather, only the uses of statements could be considered to be true or false.
Indeed, one of the hallmarks of the ordinary use perspective is its insistence upon the distinctions between meaning and use."Meanings", for ordinary language philosophers, are theinstructionsfor usage of words - the common and conventional definitions of words.Usage, on the other hand, is the actual meanings that individual speakers have - the things that an individual speaker in a particular context wants to refer to. The word "dog" is an example of a meaning, but pointing at a nearby dog and shouting "This dog smells foul!" is an example of usage. From this distinction between usage and meaning arose the divide between the fields ofPragmaticsandSemantics.
Yet another distinction is of some utility in discussing language: "mentioning".Mentionis when an expression refers to itself as a linguistic item, usually surrounded by quotation marks. For instance, in the expression "'Opopanax' is hard to spell", what is referred to is the word itself ("opopanax") and not what it means (an obscure gum resin). Frege had referred to instances of mentioning as "opaque contexts".
In his essay, "Reference and Definite Descriptions",Keith Donnellansought to improve upon Strawson's distinction. He pointed out that there are two uses of definite descriptions:attributiveandreferential. Attributive uses provide a description of whoever is being referred to, while referential uses point out the actual referent. Attributive uses are like mediated references, while referential uses are more directly referential.
Paul Grice
The philosopherPaul Grice, working within the ordinary language tradition, understood "meaning" - in his 1957 eponymous article - to have two kinds:naturalandnon-natural.Natural meaninghad to do with cause and effect, for example with the expression "these spots mean measles".Non-naturalmeaning, on the other hand, had to do with the intentions of the speaker in communicating something to the listener.
In his essay,Logic and Conversation, Grice went on to explain and defend an explanation of how conversations work. His guiding maxim was called thecooperative principle, which claimed that the speaker and the listener will have mutual expectations of the kind of information that will be shared. The principle is broken down into four maxims:Quality(which demands truthfulness and honesty),Quantity(demand for just enough information as is required),Relation(relevance of things brought up), andManner(lucidity). This principle, if and when followed, lets the speaker and listener figure out the meaning of certain implications by way of inference.
The works of Grice led to an avalanche of research and interest in the field, both supportive and critical. One spinoff was calledRelevance theory, developed byDan Sperberand Deirdre Wilson during the mid-1980s, whose goal was to make the notion ofrelevancemore clear. Similarly, in his work, "Universal pragmatics", Jurgen Habermas began a program that sought to improve upon the work of the ordinary language tradition. In it, he laid out the goal of a valid conversation as a pursuit of mutual understanding.